Basketball: Is Pac-10 expansion talk serious?

ABC4 Sports in Salt Lake City has posted a story suggesting the possibility that Utah — but not BYU — could be a future target for Pac-10 expansion.

Colorado also was cited in the story as a possible future Pac-10 school.

Twice the story stresses that “this is all speculation.”

Jon Wilner of the Bay Area News Group talked Monday with Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott, who said of possible expansion, “We’re looking at it very seriously.

“It wasn’t something identified for me by the presidents when I took the job. But it’s very natural as you look at the value of the conference from a media standpoint,” he said. “If we were ever going to look at expansion, this would be the logical time” (because negotiations for a new TV deal will begin next year).

Jeff Faraudo

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probably why they brought in whineberg. he helped bring penn state to the big10. what they really should do is add boise state, but i guess the academics aren’t decent enough there, to do that. utah or colorado would be interesting. 10 is enough, though, i think.

uh oh.

Oh, God! I HATE this talk of Pac 10 expansion. We have the best basketball and football schedules where we play true round robins in both sports. I think every single other conference totally messes it up by having north and south OR east and west divisions. They don’t get the home and away schedule for basketball, and they don’t play everyone in the conference in football. Why do you want to add schools? So a wider geographic base watches your games on TV? So you can host a profitable championship football game?

I really don’t understand! Tradition matters more than just money. And we don’t NEED expansion. We are doing just fine as a conference!!

Whomever is behind this, my message to them is to go to a four letter place that starts with H. Don’t screw up the great conference that we have! Instead, do a better job at managing the fantastic conference already in place!

BlueNGold

I don’t see how the conference could be expanded by 1 team. There needs to be an even number, doesn’t there? And I can’t see Colorado wanting to align itself with the west coast, either. So unless I am missing something, this does not make a lot of sense.

rollonubears

big 10 has 11, right?

chasin’bear

I’ve posted once or twice in the past here and follow this blog closely. This is an interesting topic- I get the traditionalist viewpoint, but I also understand the need to keep pace with the other conferences. Let’s be real- the BCS is the system in place, and while it sucks, it’s the system we’ve got. That extra champ game helps 1 loss teams get bumped into the NC game and also other BCS bowls. But, the Pac 10 is severely lacking that “extra bump” in the polls… it’s virtually impossible for a 1 loss team in the Pac to have a shot at the NC with a round robin, which in turn means there’s only 1 team that is typically eligible for a BCS bowl. And if the Big 10 makes that jump, the Pac is REALLY left in the dust. that’s bad news for everyone in the Pac.

From a recruiting standpoint, Utah and Colorado are good choices- it will be difficult, though, to bring Colorado over from the Big 12. In my mind for Colorado, if you get 1 or 2 games in Texas every year with the Big 12, that’s some prime recruiting ground. The flipside, you’ll pick up 1 or 2 games in CA each year, which is also good. If this recruiting season was any indication, Tedford may enjoy the CO connection.

Another piece of this is we’re also talking about ALL sports, not just football. The pac 10 has good olypmic sports, water sports, ect… don’t know much about Utah and CO in that area. Might give the Pac some formidable ice hockey competition.

As for the expansion, I definitely love having the 10 teams and being able to play everybody. But if it must be done, I say we try to grab Utah and BYU. That would keep the two teams to a state/region. You could divide it something along the lines of North/South. North: UDub, Wazzu, Oreg, OSU, Cal, Stanfurd. South: USC, UCLA, Zona, ASU, Utah, BYU. Although that makes the South division brutal…

H8sRed

Noooo expansion!

CalBear91

I agree 100% with Uh Oh. Expansion is a bad idea. Shoot, I have trouble with Arizona being in the Pacific 10!

CruzinBears

It can’t/won’t be Boise St. or BYU due to ineligibility on either an athletic or academic front… Same goes for the Cal States/UNR/UNLV argument… Possibly CO and Utah, but other than them it’d be hard to add two teams… Not a big fan of the expansion idea though round robin just makes more sense…

SteveNTexas

It must be that rumor time of year. Big Ten and their fans are talking about it too. Boise State’s poor academics make them a horrible fit -its not even in a major media market – NO WAY.

Colorado would be attractive- Its a giant media market and fast growing as well. UTAH would be ok – at least both of those schools have decent academics. I can’t think of any other west coast schools worthy- maybe BYU comes close. UTEP -its part of the UT system and the academics are ok. It would easily win the Pac 10 in Bball this year. Football probably in the lower half of the Big Ten. El Paso -Juarez is a decent sized media market- if we took UTEP then New Mexico would be a logical choice.

milo

Not gonna happen. Instead the Pac10 will cobble together a TV alliance with the Big12 and ACC that will bring in the revenues the P10 wants.

A few specially design inter-league match-up like the Big 12/Pac 10 Hardwood series extended to football and hoops would make more sense.

I could see a Big12/Pac10 pre-season football match up weekend, conference winners plus another decent game, $C-Texas, Cal-Oklahoma, UCLA-Nebraska, etc. Give it a name like Shoot-out Weekend. Apply the same to the ACC and hoops. Plenty of great match up.

Toss in the Olympic sports like women’s hoops, water polo, track and field, rugby and you’ll have enough programming.

BlueNGold

All the reports I have seen are talking about expanding to 12 teams. Having an odd number would seriously screw up the current scheduling systems, especially in b-ball.